FlashNote is "a quick notes manager" and according to the web site: "When you need a rough copy to save or to process some pieces of a text, Flashnote is small, quick and convenient. Press the shortcut-key combination and a rough copy is on the screen in a flash of a second. Press ESC and the program hides. It's that simple. You don't need to find a place for text, to run Notepad or huge heavy PIM. Flashnote is a lightweight notes manager, everything gets done quickly, simply and in a more convenient way." [The designer notes that FlashNote is NOT a Notepad replacement program; but it looks like they have a portable version, too] (OS: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7)

FreePlane is a "free and open source software to support thinking, sharing information and getting things done at work, in school and at home. The core of the software consists of functions for mind mapping, also called concept mapping or information mapping, and tools for using mapped information" (OS: Designer notes: "Freeplane runs on any operating system on which a current version of Java is installed and from USB")

Whether you have a complicated real life or ficitional family to sort out, the free trial of Gaia Family Tree™ promises to help: "Plug your information directly into the software, and let it build your family tree for you. With its simple interface, Gaia Family Tree™ allows you to create your family tree with a few clicks - no need to be an expert in computers or genealogy" (OS: Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7)

The free express version of MapleXp time-tracking software allows you to "keep track of multiple tasks and categorize how much time you spent working on each of them. Main features of MapleXp include: unlimited number of tasks organized into hierarchical structure, unlimited number of work items (single piece of time spent on a particular task), pay rate for tasks to invoice customers, totals calculated across time and tasks, rich configuration capabilities" (OS: Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7)

Pigeonhole Free Organizer "shows you a grid of pigeonholes similar to a spread sheet. Click on a pigeonhole and type in whatever you want - it is saved automatically. When you want to recall the information, just move the mouse over the grid. Whatever you typed into the pigeonhole the mouse is over appears automatically in the viewer window. There are 175 pigeonholes displayed at any one time so you can view up to 175 different pieces of information just by moving the mouse over the grid...... Could anything be easier?" (OS: Not specified, likely Windows.)

PixBuilder Studiois a "free image editing software program for digital photo editing, images processing, and resizing. For digital photo editing, you can use its many professional quality functions. PixBuilder Studio allows you to use the following color management functions: brightness/contrast management, color balance, and levels manipulation. For professional results, you can use the curves function. In PixBuilder Studio, to carry out great, professional looking photo editing, you can manipulate the image with color channels. Layers concept, multi-step undo, gradients and masks support, and text layers support all make PixBuilder Studio a great graphics software program for image processing and creating illustration" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7 (32-Bit/64-Bit)

QT Writer Express can be used "for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book with embedded illustrations, tables of contents, indexes, and bibliographies. QT Writer is a complete and powerful software solution for creating, editing and viewing various types of documents. A number of available features give you a fine degree of control over the formatting of text, pages, sections of documents, and also entire documents. You may also save your documents in a variety of industry standard formats like pdf, rtf, doc, txt, and our own presentation format ssp. Insert special characters, emotional icons, pictures, and images into your writing for a more colourful display of your thoughts and ideas. Create pdfs without any additional software. Use the built-in PDF capabilities of QT Writer to share your work easily and with everyone! Adobe Acrobat is NOT required to create these handy files." [Designer notes that the application is also completely portable.] (OS: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / 7 / 8)

This is the last week for free access and downloads to my writing how-to e-book Way of the Cheetah, which will be going back into the vault on December 2.

yWriter - www.spacejock.com - one of my favourite pieces of writing software. Written by a writer, for writers. Rock solid and works across Windows and Linux.

GIMP - www.gimp.org - No photoshop on Linux, but GIMP does everything in the way of image manipulation I've ever needed.

Tweetdeck - either AIR application or browser plugin. Pull Facebook, Twitter and more services together into one very nice interface. A little flaky at times, but only at times.

Celtx - If screenwriting's your thing, then you need to take a look at Celtx.

Inkscape - Vector graphics are fun, too!

Scribus - Professional desktop publishing app for nowt.

LyX - The ultimate text editor. Quite definitely not wysiwyg, LyX concentrates on getting the text down. After that, the various export filters produce some very beautiful professional results. Bit of a learning curve, though.

Blender - Open source, free, 3D Modelling application. If you thought LyX had a learning curve, this one's more of a learning line - a vertical line.

And, at number 11, CCleaner. The best little piece of software for keeping your Windows PC free from all that crud that Windows just doesn't seem to be able to clean up itself.

So now you've got 21 things in your list.

Oh, before I forget, IrfanView, Paint.NET, Komodo Edit, SCITE. Not just random words, but 4 more freebies I use a lot.